The Hindu : 'Serious drought' in T.N., says CMC report

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 04, 2002

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'Serious drought' in T.N., says CMC report

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI OCT. 3. The Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC), which visited Tamil Nadu early this week, has said that the Cauvery region in the State "is in the grip of a serious drought". And while 63 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water (including 1.07 tmcft for the Karaikal region in Pondicherry) is required immediately to save the `samba' crop, the availability at the Mettur reservoir is only about 13 tmcft.

In its report on the "ground realities" submitted to the Supreme Court by the Union Government counsel, Wasim Quadri, the CMC said the rain-fed crops "presented a bleak picture". "In the main command of the Cauvery delta, majority of the fields were lying fallow, some of them prepared for rice transplanting while others still requiring land preparation".

The court had on September 30 directed the CMC to visit Tamil Nadu to assess the "ground realities" and submit a report to the Prime Minister and file a copy at the court by today.

The report explained the existing conditions and the water requirements in the two States, without indicating whether Karnataka had released the required quantity of water to Tamil Nadu as per the court's order of September 3 and the CRA's decision of September 8.

From the field conditions, it appeared that a majority of farmers in Tamil Nadu were not able to transplant and harvest the "kuruvai" rice mainly due to inadequate water supplies and the failure of south-west monsoon in the whole catchment area resulting in a delayed release of water from Mettur on September 6.

Further "it has been reported that the `samba' rice crop is generally planted in about 11 lakh acres. This also includes 20,000 acres in the Karaikal region... This year farmers, to a large extent, have not been able to transplant this crop as yet due to inadequate water supplies for land preparation''.

"Assuming an irrigation project efficiency of about 50 per cent for this season (due to extreme scarcity, farmers are less likely to waste the available resources), a total of about 63 tmcft of water shall be required for immediate land preparation and transplanting of the crop by October end...and an additional 10 tmcft of water for drinking purposes. It is assumed that subsequent requirements shall be met by the northeast monsoon and canal/ground water supplies," the report said.

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